thinkpad r31 not powering on

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chop999i999 · #1 Post by **chop999i999** » Thu Jul 17, 2008 1:05 pm

So I got this laptop from my gf's mom who got it from her boss. Its not powering on and no lights at all when plugged in(no signs of life). I did a few searches online and found it might be the power input. I heard the conections come loose and you can tell by sunken solder around the connections which it had so i soldered them again and will see if it works. If not what else could be wrong and how can i test stuff with out just replacing parts?

vanaya · #2 Post by **vanaya** » Thu Jul 17, 2008 7:10 pm

I have been tooling around with a pair of R30's but luckily I haven't had the power issue, but would recommend trying with a dock/port replicator. The dock/port replicator will bypass the a/c connector and power through the dock connector. Maybe this will help.

SMA · #3 Post by **SMA** » Fri Jul 18, 2008 8:27 am

Read this.

chop999i999 · #4 Post by **chop999i999** » Sun Jul 20, 2008 10:12 pm

SMA wrote:Read this.

i already check that out and i am not missing that on my motherboard.

mike-s · #5 Post by **mike-s** » Fri Jul 25, 2008 7:22 pm

I had a Motherboard burn out on my R30 once, seems the power regulator ic (thats what i presume it was) let out the magic smoke, preventing the board from charging up. It worked fine on the battery, but wouldn't charge. Unfortunately the fix was a replacement motherboard, fortunately i found a motherboard going cheaply on ebay in the US and snapped it up.

At this point i'd like to point out that i've seen other manufacturers (acer specifically) that have designed the power regulator to be a sub assembly that plugs in via a fdd/ide/jumper block type assembly. Sure it was a slightly added cost, but if i ever smoked that power connector, i *KNEW* i could just replace a fourty dollar part (taken into account the imbalance in laptop part costs) instead of a couple hundred dollar motherboard if i went OEM.

It's a shame more manufacturers don't take this sort of thing into account when designing their products. Then again, laptops have become desposable items *sigh*.

SMA · #6 Post by **SMA** » Sat Jul 26, 2008 2:21 pm

I would still recommend trying to keep focus on the capacitor already point to.
It may have a stage before coming loose, and no one knows what the symptoms at that stage are.

Try re-soldering it or try replacing it.
I am convinced that every ThinkPad board will have plenty of these capacitors so finding one should not be a problem.
The A20 board I use as spare parts repository still has some more of these capacitors. That being after three r31 capacitor repairs.

thinkpad r31 not powering on

thinkpad r31 not powering on

saw that

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